JMartin-2

Once again, Levin and Pinkerson set their sights on the injustices of "the system" (particularly the U.S. prison juggernaut), and once again, they remain oblivious to anything of value that might be gleaned from such an examination, behaving like nothing so much as a couple of street preachers railing against the abuses of "The Man," but ultimately rejecting the possibility of social progress (and their responsibility as critics) through their failure to communicate or even explore what steps can be taken to end them.

Now, don't get me wrong -- I have no problem with filmmakers taking an "objective," non-critical stance towards important social issues. But Levin and Parkinson have taken that stance towards the same issues for so long now that they should at least have some vague inklings on how to fix them. Alas, with "Thug Life in D.C.," it has become obvious that, despite all their filmmaking experience, they have yet to learn anything about the conditions they document, beyond the kind of simplistic analysis you would expect to find among members of a high-school debate team (i.e., maybe we wouldn't have so many criminals if there were more economic equality in our society -- gosh, thanks a lot).

The time has long since passed for Levin and Parkinson to stop warming up and step up to the plate, to end the tired, indignant head-shaking that one can detect in almost every frame of their films to date. Based on "Thug Life in D.C.," though, they're content to remain bench-warmers, unwilling to look any deeper beneath the surface -- especially ironic, when one considers that wasted potential is one of the ostensible themes of this particular film.

Lars von Trier is not simply one of the most consistently interesting filmmakers working today -- he is also a supremely gifted con artist with a penchant for pulling the public's collective leg and constantly building up his own "legend." As such, it's difficult, if not impossible, to know when to take him seriously, and thus any serious attempt to figure him out is ultimately doomed to failure. Therefore, a documentary about von Trier and his work is best approached as pure entertainment rather than a revealing glimpse into the "filmmakers' art" or the "creative process" or whatever. Here, though, another factor comes into play: unlike the previous docs on von Trier (such as Stig Björkman's "Tranceformer: A Portrait of Lars von Trier" and Jesper Jargil's "The Humiliated"), "Von Trier's 100 Eyes" -- about the making of his latest film, "Dancer in the Dark" -- is produced by Zentropa, von Trier's own production company, which (in Scandinavia at least) is well-known for its tendency toward exaggeration and outright fabrication in matters of publicity. In other words, this film should be approached not simply with a grain of salt, but preferably a whole bag.

First things first: for (ostensibly) legal reasons, Björk herself has a negligible part in this doc, limited almost entirely to clips from the finished product. The entire enterprise seems mostly pointless as a consequence, and the one scene in which she does appear (a cutaway view of the set, with von Trier directing her in the harrowing murder scene while filming the action through a hole in the wall) is so utterly fascinating that you want to see more, but sorry, that's all you'll get, buddy. And with the lead actress out of the picture, there is precious little footage of von Trier actually interacting with his actors, save some goofy, between-takes clowning with Catherine Deneuve and a couple of other members of the supporting cast. For the most part, though, once von Trier's camera goes on, Forbert's goes off, and so anyone interested in seeing how von Trier works with his actors might as well skip this and track down a copy of "The Humiliated" instead.

The remainder of the piece is scarcely more informative than the ten-minute promotional pieces included on the U.S. "Dancer" DVD, dealing with the original inspiration (a Danish fairy tale called "Golden Heart"), the choreography, and of course the much-vaunted 100 cameras, with plenty of pretentious moments in between where Lars reads lyrics from the film's songs in a droning, emotionless voice while a split-screen shows the view from various angles. Things finally pick up a bit near the end, after Björk has (supposedly) disappeared after (supposedly) stalking angrily off the set while (supposedly) tearing up her wardrobe with her teeth (!). Von Trier is shown considering whether or not to give up altogether (not very convincingly, I might add), and somebody creates some odd-looking Björk masks, with the intention of putting them on a body double and finishing the rest of the film that way. The whole thing is so absurd and credibility-straining that even the most gullible viewers will probably sense that something is awry, and sure enough, just when things are looking their most hopeless, Björk suddenly and mysteriously reappears on the set, filming is completed, and flash-forward a bit to Lars and Björk collecting their awards at Cannes. Everyone lives happily ever after, the end, etc. etc. Cinéma vérité this ain't.

Forgive my cynicism, but if anyone connected with this documentary thought they were making a "serious" film, it doesn't show. This is basically an hour-long promotional piece for Lars von Trier and the film he happened to be working on at the time. We learn nothing about von Trier, nothing about "Dancer in the Dark," and nothing about the process of making a film, and as if that weren't bad enough, this isn't even a particularly entertaining film. A boring documentary about good ol' zany Lars? It's like they weren't even trying. Go with "Tranceformer" or "The Humiliated" instead, or better yet, just watch "Dancer in the Dark" again.

I've heard numerous people go on about how "Amelie" represents a "revival of French cinema." If this is true, then the future of French film looks a lot dimmer than even the most pessimistic Francophile could have guessed.

Like "Delicatessen" and "The City of Lost Children," "Amelie" is a stunningly made film, with wonderful music and some awe-inspiring visuals. But this is supposed to be a narrative-driven film, and the film falls flat here.

The plot could basically be described as Jane Austen's "Emma" meets Dreyer's "Gertrud" meets a theme park ride, as a succession of episodes follows Amelie's search for true love, in the process helping others in their own quests, blah blah blah. If this doesn't sound like enough to maintain a 130-minute film, you're right, and even though the actors try their best, the movie runs out of tricks after just half-an-hour and plods along for the remainder in an entirely predictable pattern you've seen a million times in hackneyed Hollywood romances.

This pedestrian storyline takes place against a complete fantasy world with absolutely no resemblance to the "real" world, but unlike "Delicatessen" and "The City of Lost Children," Jeunet tries to ground it somehow in reality, setting it in both a specific location (the Montmarte district of Paris) and at a specific time (1997, around the same time as Princess Di's death, which in Jeunet's Disneyfied Montmarte is the only world event of any significance). This renders the entire "fairy tale" approach (complete with wistful narrator) moot -- "once upon a time" has no meaning when the storyteller goes to such lengths to place his tale in an actual place and time.

So why the colorful, gussied-up, theme-park aesthetic that dominates the film? It appears that Jeunet simply does so for the purposes of nostalgia, to harken back to the "gay Paree" image that in all likelihood never existed and certainly doesn't today. Whereas the real Montmarte is heavily populated by impoverished immigrants, Jeunet's is as white as a Republican Party convention, and the one token minority character, an Arab, is as French as de Gaulle. Sanitation problems don't exist in this Montmarte, nor for that matter do fast-food restaurants, chain stores, or any other symbols of modern society. Even the beggars are happy and content. Intentionally or not, there is something quite reactionary about the world view Jeunet presents us with, and the occasional pseudo-documentary flourish doesn't change one jot the fact that nothing in the film is "real."

Jeunet has dismissed this criticism, saying that his film is not about the social problems of today but about the struggles and triumphs of "the little guy." How can you not like that? But in the real world, "the little guys" are impoverished, overwhelmingly non-white workers living in abject squalor, more concerned with where their next meal is coming from than with finding "true love." These people don't exist for Jeunet, so his smarmy claim of sticking up for those who can't stick up for themselves is a self-serving fraud.

To sum up, "Ameile" is a visually gorgeous film with some fine performances, all of which are negated by the insipid and unoriginal purposes they're used for. If Jeunet had the guts to take the premise and set it in something at least approximating the real world, this would've been an interesting stylistic experiment, along the lines of Godard's "neo-realist musical" "A Woman Is a Woman." But Jeunet (who despises both the directors of the nouvelle vague and the neo-realist movement) seems to have prostrated himself before commerical success, and in the process produced a work little better than the mega-budget, star-driven garbage pumped out on a routine basis by Hollywood. French cinema can do better than this.